Will Hines – The Sleepover Form Workshop

In preparation for the Del Close Marathon, the Upright Citizens Brigade Training Centre offered a bunch of workshops covering various topics. I attended a workshop with Will Hines covering two ‘harder’ long-forms that he saw many times when starting with the UCB – The Sleepover and Tracers. Below are the notes and impressions from The Sleepover portion of the workshop.

How It Came About: Mother were a Harold Night team at UCBNY known for their high energy, aggressive playstyle. Sometimes the play was too aggressive – scenes would get tagged out almost immediately, and shows had a tendency to fizzle out on occasion. The name “The Sleepover” came from the team’s tendency to run sleep over themed group games in Harolds.

The new form, workshopped with Armando Diaz was intended to improve the team’s acting chops, while slowing them down and forcing hard commitment to characters. The Sleepover has elements of La Ronde and the Deconstruction – each player starts by playing one character for the initial run of scenes, and later scenes as part of the montage/run start with the characters seen earlier until tag runs/side support commences.

I learned this from watching Mother’s shows. If you end up taking a class with Mother, they’re right.Will Hines

Opening: After taking a suggestion, each player steps out one by one to announce their mantra. The mantra is a line of vaguely inspiration dialogue inspired by the suggestion such as “go big or go home” or “God is on our side” , and is presented as if the person is talking into a mirror. This is used to inform each player’s emotional character choice, so once you have said your mantra make a decision based on what you said – this will be your character for the show.

Be aware of volume: each player should say their mantra at least three times loudly before fading down, and stage picture: everyone should be standing out of line (north/south rule), using the entire stage.

Once everyone has stepped out and said their mantra, everyone should start repeating their mantras louder and louder and then leave the stage one by one, until only one player is left (Player A). This player is considered “activated” and can then pick a second player to activate and then perform a scene, with the second player (Player B) initiating the scene.

In summary:

Suggestion

Each player announces a mantra, one by one

Each player leaves the stage, leaving one player (activated)

The activated person picks a second person to activate.

The second person initiates a scene.

Opening Scenes: When the scene starts, you develop who you using the mantra as inspiration. In order to start in the middle of a scene (as opposed to “hi, how are you?”) the initiator should be answering a question that was asked off-stage. The scene plays out as normal – remember to name each other and use philosophy, history, specifics, and relationship as keys to helping the scene develop. Characters should have emotional tones – no-one is identical, and give gifts through agreements and confirmation.

You are rewarded for simple choices that are easy to remember.Will Hines

Scenes are edited by having the non-activated players step out and repeat their mantra. Players A & B leave the stage. Player B then activates another player (Player C) who initiates a scene with Player B. The rest of the players leave the stage, and the scene plays out. As a result, every character in this universe knows each other. USE NAMES.

The opening run of scenes repeats until every player in the team has had at least one scene. In a team of six players, the scenes would run in the following order:

Player A & B

Player B & C

Player C & D

Player D & E

Player E & F

The final scene can be wiped with a sweep edit. Alternatively everyone can step out to repeat their mantras before leaving the stage.

Montage Run: Once everyone has performed a scene, the montage run of the show commences. Anyone can initiate with anyone else, and side supports, tag outs, and edits are performed as normal. The only condition is the scene must begin with the two characters seen in the earlier scenes. This can (should?) be played deconstruction style – bring back all the fun things that came up earlier and mine them for all their worth, getting quicker and quicker until you hit that big bang.